All the Cong's horses

10

There were no proclamations of 'Soniaaaaa... I love you' from the crowd, but let's admit it - there was one thing the Sonia Gandhi rally did to all the Cong's horses and all the Cong's men in Karnataka - they sat together for a good hour and a half, which is no mean achievement! The 'Bharat Nirman rally' (yes, that's what it was called, though everyone thought it was just called the 'Sonia Gandhi rally') in Davangere saw some 2 lakh plus people from across Karnataka coming together to listen to the desh ki bahu. (Or perhaps they just came to see her helicopter... there was certainly a clamour to take a look at that.) That's got to be good news for a party that's been a divided house for a long time in the state - one joke goes that there are more factions of the Karnataka Congress....

Always deny the truth...

4

That's the basic tenet that most politicians build on. Well, after claiming, explaining, exclaiming and re-claiming to the media everyday for the last 30 days that, no, his son won't be the Lok Sabha candidate from Shimoga, Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa has gone (to dilli durbar) and done the predictable. He's ensured his son IS contesting. The state BJP unit had been asked to send a short-list of possible candidates to the party's Central election committee to finalise the names of its Lok Sabha candidates. From Shimoga, the short-list was really short -- it had one name -- B Y Raghavendra. So, after living in denial for weeks together, the BJP has finally proved itself wrong in saying it won't go by dynastic polity. In fact, the short-lists from various districts are filled with sons, nephews, sisters and brothers of the party's MLAs. We....